India accounts for three of Xiaomi’s top five global sales channels

Xiaomi plans to raise about $10 billion at a valuation of $80-100 billion, as per global media reports.

KOLKATA: Xiaomi Corp., which filed documents for an initial public offering in Hong Kong, has said India accounts for three of its top five sales channels that together contributed 32% of its global revenue in 2017.

In first position is a Chinese ecommerce company and in the second spot is an ecommerce company based in India. They are followed by a Chinese consumer electronics retail company, a consumer electronics distributor based in India and the Indian operation of a leading international ecommerce company, Xiaomi said in its filings, without identifying them.

Two senior industry executives said Flipkart is the second-largest trade partner for Xiaomi globally, while the fourth-largest is TVS Electronics in India and the fifthlargest is Amazon India.

TVS Electronics, part of the Chennai-based TVS Group, undertakes sales and distribution through the Mi.com platform in India. Xiaomi said Mi.com was the third-largest online retail platform in India by gross merchandise value in 2017, quoting third-party firm iResearch.

“We are No. 1in terms of smartphone unit shipments online in both mainland China and India in the fourth quarter of 2017, according to IDC… We cooperate with third-party ecommerce platforms such as JD.com, Tmall, Flipkart, TVS Electronics and Amazon to leverage their localised sales and marketing expertise, logistics and payment infrastructure,” Xiaomi said in the filings.

A Xiaomi India spokesperson declined to comment on the matter.

Xiaomi was India’s largest smartphone maker with a 31.1% share, followed by Samsung at 26.2% in the quarter ended March, according to Hong Kong-based Counterpoint Technology Market Research.

The Chinese company is the largest online smartphone brand in India with a 57% share, followed by Samsung (9%), Motorola (8.9%), Lenovo (4%) and Apple (3.4%), it said, citing International Data Corp. research for October-December 2017.

Xiaomi plans to raise about $10 billion at a valuation of $80-100 billion, as per global media reports. The company’s revenue increased 67% to $18 billion in 2017, it said in the filings.

About 28% of its sales is from overseas markets, including India.

As per latest regulatory filings in India, Xiaomi India’s revenue was Rs 8,379.33 crore ($1.25 billion) in 2016-17, a seven-fold increase from the preceding year and its operations in the country turned profitable within about three years of entry. India is Xiaomi’s second-largest market after China and one of the main contributors to its global revenue growth.

Xiaomi said it plans to leverage its smartphone leadership in India to expand and monetise the user base. The company has set up a local product and R&D team to customise products for Indian conditions such as lowering a device’s temperature and chargers that can handle fluctuations in power supply, it said.